A Good Difference
My father knew the city as Saigon—
I know it as Ho Chi Minh City
and I get in a morning walk, buying
an ice cream at a shop, I thank you
welcome, welcome the owner says.
Even at this early hour the motorbikes
are commandeering the streets, birds
fluttering in and out of the great noise.
I approach a group of young men
idling their bikes by a pho factory—
I ask them in my poor Vietnamese
if they might give me a ride for ride’s sake.
They say yes and I climb on a blue beauty.
I ask to be driven along the ancient
river, the one I fell in love with,
the one my father remembered for its sad trees.
© Tim Suermondt
Tim Suermondt’s seventh full-length book of poems A Day In The Republic came out in late 2025 from Dos Madres Press. He has published in Poetry, Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Stand Magazine, Smartish Pace, Barrow Street, Amsterdam Review and Plume, among many others. He lives in Cambridge (MA) with his wife, the poet Pui Ying Wong.
The Loch Raven Review 